cence in the Holy Land exceeded that of the great Helena. She returned to Constantinople, covered with honours, and laden with pious relics.
Ambition now awoke in the heart of Eudocia; aspiring to the government of the empire, she contended for power with the princess, her benefactress, whom she sought to supplant in the confidence of the emperor. But, in 445, an unlucky accident exposed her to the emperor's jealousy. He had given her an apple of extraordinary size, which she sent to Paulinus, whom she esteemed on account of his learning. Paulinus, not knowing whence it came, presented it to the emperor, who soon after asked the empress what she had done with it. She, fearing his anger, told him that she had eaten it. This made the emperor suspect that there was too great an intimacy between her and Paulinus, and, producing the apple, he convicted her of falsehood.
The influence of Pulcheria triumphed over that of the empress, who found herself unable to protect her most faithful adherents: she witnessed the disgrace of Cyrus, the praetorian prefect, which was followed by the execution of Paulinus, whose great personal beauty and intimacy with the empress, had excited the jealousy of Theodosius.
Perceiving that her husband's affections were irretrievably alienated, Eudocia requested permission to retire to Jerusalem, and consecrate the rest of her life to solitude and religion; but the vengeance of Pulcheria, or the jealousy of Theodosius, pursued her even in her retreat. Stripped of the honours due to her rank, the empress was disgraced in the eyes of the surrounding nations. This treatment irritated and exasperated her, and led her to commit acts unworthy her profession as a Christian or a philosopher. But the death of the emperor, the misfortunes of her daughter, and the approach of age, gradually calmed her passions, and she passed the latter part of her life in building churches, and relieving the poor.
Some writers assert that she was reconciled to Theodosius, and returned to Constantinople during his life; others, that she was not recalled till after his death. However this may be, she died at Jerusalem, about 460, at the age of sixty-six, solemnly protesting her innocence with her dying breath. In her last moments she displayed great composure and piety.
During her power, magnanimously forgetting the barbarity of her brothers, she promoted them to the rank of consuls and prefects: observing their confusion on being summoned to the imperial presence, she said, "Had you not compelled me to visit Constantinople, I should never have had it in my power to bestow on you these marks of sisterly affection."
EUDOCIA, or EUDOXIA,
Surnamed Macrembolitissa, widow of Constantine Ducas, caused herself to be proclaimed empress with her three sons, on the death of her husband, in 1067. Romanus Diogenes, one of the greatest generals of the empire, attempted to deprive her of the crown; and Eudoxia had him condemned to death, but happening to see him, she was so charmed by his beauty, that she pardoned him, and made him commander of the troops in the East. He there effaced by his valour his former delinquency, and she resolved to marry
